me eager men were for addressing the King to turn Lucas out
of office. This was not done; but during several days the ill humour
of the Lower House showed itself by a studied discourtesy. One of
the members was wanted as a witness in a matter which the Lords were
investigating. They sent two judges with a message requesting the
permission of the Commons to examine him. At any other time the judges
would have been called in immediately, and the permission would have
been granted as of course. But on this occasion the judges were kept
waiting some hours at the door; and such difficulties were made about
the permission that the Peers desisted from urging a request which
seemed likely to be ungraciously refused.

The attention of the Parliament was, during the remainder of the
session, chiefly occupied by commercial questions. Some of those
questions required so much investigation, and gave occasion to so much
dispute, that the prorogation did not take place till the fifth of July.
There was consequently some illness and much discontent among both Lords
and Commons. For, in that age, the London season usually ended soon
after the first notes of the cuckoo had been heard, and before the poles
had been decked for the dances and mummeries which welcomed the genial
May day of the ancient calendar. Since the year of the Revolution, a
year which was an exception to all ordinary rules, the members of the
two Houses had never been detained from their woods and haycocks even so
late as the beginning of June.

The Commons had, soon after they met, appointed a Committee to enquire
into the state of trade, and had referred to this Committee several
petitions from merchants and manufacturers who complained that they were
in danger of being undersold, and who asked for additional protection.

A highly curious report on the importation of silks and the exportation
of wool was soon presented to the House. It was in that age believed by
all but a very few speculative men that the sound commercial policy was
to keep out of the country the delicate and brilliantly tinted textures
of southern looms, and to keep in the country the raw material on which
most of our own looms were employed. It was now fully proved that,
during eight years of war, the textures which it was thought desirable
to keep out had been constantly coming in, and the material which it
was thought desirable to keep in had been constantly going out. This
interchange, an int